TalkLeft has a brief story on the acquittal of the Manganos, the New Orleans nursing home owners who had been charged with negligent homicide in the deaths of patients at their nursing home. The Washington Post provides some further background:

On Friday night, after four hours of deliberations, a jury acquitted
the Manganos of negligent homicide, charges that could have put them in
prison for life. The case raised broader questions about who, if
anyone, deserves to be punished for the deaths in Katrina's deadly
flooding.

Though numerous government agencies have been faulted
for the disaster, the Manganos were the first and only people to be
tried in a criminal court for any of the countless mistakes of planning
that led to 1,800 deaths in the flooding that followed the storm late
in the summer of 2005. . . . .

"I went back and forth for sure, but when it came down to it, the
Manganos were not criminals," the juror, Kim Maxwell, 46, a secretary
at a power plant, said later. "I just wanted to hug them." . . .

By all accounts, the Manganos' nursing home offered good care to its residents before the storm.

Mabel,
the administrator, sometimes helped bathe and dress the residents; Sal,
in charge of maintenance, stopped to spoon-feed those who could not
feed themselves. Their son and daughter-in-law helped out.

Having been through Hurricane Betsy in 1965, the Manganos also believed
that their nursing home had been built on a high spot and was less
vulnerable to flooding.

The
Manganos' fears for residents' safety during an evacuation were
well-founded, too, according to expert witnesses who testified that
nursing homes often suffer fatalities when evacuated.

The trial has been fraught with tears and bitterness, and the relatives of the dead and the Manganos have relived the tragedy.

"They killed 35 people," Joy Lewis, whose mother died in the flooding,
said after closing arguments. She added that while she does not
necessarily think the Manganos should go to jail, "they should pay" and
the specific form would be up to God. "When they put their heads on
their pillow at night," she said, "they'll pay."